Junichi Fukura resigned from his managerial position of the Orix Buffaloes on September 25. What's sad about this is that it needed to happen earlier and that the Orix front office wanted him to stay around.
Rewind to the 2015 season, where expectations were high coming off their first A-class season in six years and were supposed to build off of it.. A nightmare beginning led to the resignation of then-manager Hiroshi Moriwaki. They didn't play bad, but their record had them in the cellar at the time in June of 2015 while in the midst of interleague play.
Fukura became the manager on an interim basis and should've served as a caretaker for Orix to find a new manager. Instead, the Buffaloes get lazy and keep Fukura for the following 2016 season while a front office clash involving Ryuzo Setoyama and another executive kept the team distracted.
While both executives were fighting for power, Fukura was a yes-man in all of this and was overwatching the situation as a manager, but the power struggle was well-documented from the players, coaches and media. The war ended after the 2016 season, but even though the Buffaloes finished last that year, the front office kept Fukura around as the clash was ongoing at the time.
When the war was concluded, Setoyama was kept around while the other executive was dismissed. Orix has a hot beginning to 2017, but fell apart in the middle due to injuries and underachieving. There were even knee-jerk reaction moves to poor performance like taking deactivating Yuki Nishi for a bad game and giving him a 10-day break.
The Buffaloes have been run to live for the now, taking college or shakaijin with their last three first-round draft picks in Masataka Yoshida, Taisuke Yamaoka and Daiki Tajima. On paper, their roster has plenty of talent, but it isn't being developed or coached They make several play that don't show up as errors in the stat sheet from taking a bad angle, to making a bad drop as their attention to detail is lacking.
Simple fundamentals have been missing and it felt like the Buffaloes have had no plan in all of this, though it's easy to think So Taguchi is the future manager as he has been in charge of the ni-gun.
Fukura has absolutely no upside as a manager after showing a last place year, yet the team still mired itself in mediocrity with B-class finishes after strong starts in 2017 and 2018. Results spoke for themselves and this year, Fukura admitted to taking responsibility for the shortcomings.
Orix's front office still has incompetence until told otherwise despite all their talent. It is best for them to go outside the organization when hiring someone new. They can't clean house like how MLB does it, but there should be fresh leadership to make some drastic changes, because the current staff has felt stale.
If Orix just promotes Taguchi, it's a red flag as he may be a player's coach like Fukura without any developmental skills. Regardless, this resignation by Fukura in 2018 set the Buffaloes back three years by not hiring someone earlier and it cost some prime years of Nishi for it.
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